The Performing Arts

Madrid has a number of theaters, opera companies, and dance companies. To discover where and when specific cultural events are being performed, pick up a copy of Guía del Ocio at any city newsstand. The sheer volume of cultural offerings can be staggering.

Tickets to dramatic and musical events usually range in price from 4.20€ to 40€ ($5.25-$50), with discounts of up to 50% granted on certain days of the week (usually Wed and matinees on Sun).

The concierges at most major hotels can usually get you tickets to specific concerts, if you are clear about your wishes and needs. They charge a considerable markup, part of which is passed along to whichever agency originally booked the tickets. You'll save money if you go directly to the box office to buy tickets. In the event your choice is sold out, you may be able to get tickets (with a reasonable markup) at Localidades Galicia at Plaza del Carmen 1 (tel. 91-531-27-32; Metro: Puerta del Sol). This agency also markets tickets to bullfights and sporting events. It is open Tuesday to Saturday from 9:30am to 1:30pm and 4:30 to 7:30pm, Sunday from 9:30am to 1:30pm.

Champagne Entertainment on a Beer Budget -- Flamenco in Madrid is geared mainly to prosperous tourists with fat wallets, and nightclubs are expensive. But since Madrid is preeminently a city of song and dance, you can often be entertained at very little cost -- in fact, for the price of a glass of wine or beer, if you sit at a bar with live entertainment.

Major Performing Arts Companies

For those who speak Spanish, the Compañía Nacional de Nuevas Tendencias Escénicas is an avant-garde troupe that performs new and often controversial works by undiscovered writers. On the other hand, the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, as its name suggests, is devoted to the Spanish classics, including works by the ever-popular Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina.

Among dance companies, the national ballet of Spain -- devoted exclusively to Spanish dance -- is the Ballet Nacional de España. Their performances are always well attended. The national lyrical ballet company is the Ballet Lírico Nacional.

World-renowned flamenco sensation Antonio Canales and his troupe, Ballet Flamenco Antonio Canales, offer spirited high-energy performances. Productions are centered on Canales's impassioned Torero, his interpretation of a bullfighter and the physical and emotional struggles within the man. For tickets and information, you can call Madrid's most comprehensive ticket agency, the previously recommended Localidades Galicia, Plaza del Carmen 1 (tel. 91-531-27-32), for tickets to cultural events and virtually any other event in Castile. Other agencies include Casa de Cataluña (tel. 91-538-33-00) and Corte Inglés (tel. 91-432-93-00). Both Casa de Cataluña and Corte Inglés have satellite offices located throughout Madrid.

Madrid's opera company is the Teatro de la Opera, and its symphony orchestra is the outstanding Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid. The national orchestra of Spain -- widely acclaimed on the continent -- is the Orquesta Nacional de España, which pays particular homage to Spanish composers.

Mainstream Theatre -- Madrid offers many different theater performances, useful to you only if you are very fluent in Spanish. If you aren't, check the Guía del Ocio for performances by English-speaking companies on tour from Britain, or select a concert or subtitled movie instead.

In addition to the major ones listed, there are at least 30 other theaters, including one devoted almost entirely to children's plays, the Sala la Bicicleta, in the Ciudad de los Niños at Casa de Campo. Nonprofessional groups stage dozens of other plays in such places as churches.

Alternative Theatre -- Madrid offers a modest but fascinating choice of imaginative and original "alternative" shows -- ranging from sharp satires to esoteric sketches but -- unlike the more accessible mainstream theater where you can usually get by without a full command of Spanish -- a knowledge of the language and thought processes is essential if you decide on a visit to one of these venues.

English-Language Theatre -- The Madrid Players, with their combined troupe of American, English, and Spanish artistes, put on spirited performances throughout the year in a range of venues. A standout is the Christmas Pantomime for children of all ages, but they also do plays and musical shows, occasionally in alternative theaters such as the Triángulo, above. For details of performances and venues, call tel. 91-445-36-00 or 91-530-68-91. Also check www.madridplayers.org.

The Sultry Sound of Flamenco

The lights dim and the flamenco stars clatter rhythmically across the dance floor. Their lean bodies and hips shake and sway to the music. Accompanied by stylized guitar music, castanets, and the fervent clapping of the crowd, the dancers are filled with tension and emotion.

Flamenco dancing, with its flash, color, and ritual, is evocative of Spanish culture. The word flamenco has various translations, meaning everything from "gypsified Andalusian" to "knife," and from "blowhard" to "tough guy." Experts disagree as to where it came from, but most claim Andalusia as its seat of origin. Although its influences were both Jewish and Islamic, it was the gypsy artist who perfected both the song and the dance. Gypsies took to flamenco like "rice to paella," in the words of the historian Fernando Quiñones.

The deep song of flamenco represents a fatalistic attitude toward life. Marxists used to say it was a deeply felt protest of the lower classes against their oppressors, but this seems unfounded. Protest or not, over the centuries, rich patrons, often brash young men, liked the sound of flamenco and booked artists to stage juergas or fiestas where dancer-prostitutes became the erotic extras. By the early 17th century, flamenco was linked with pimping, prostitution, and lots and lots of drinking, by both the audience and the artists.

By the mid-19th century, flamenco had gone legitimate and was heard in theaters and café cantantes. By the 1920s, even the pre-Franco Spanish dictator, Primo de Rivera, was singing the flamenco tunes of his native Cádiz. The poet Federico García Lorca and the composer Manuel de Falla preferred a purer form, attacking what they viewed as the degenerate and "ridiculous" burlesque of flamenquismo, the jazzed-up, audience-pleasing form of flamenco. The two artists launched a Flamenco Festival in Grenada in 1922. Of course, in the decades since, their voices have been drowned out, and flamenco is more flamenquismo than ever.

In his 1995 book Flamenco Deep Song, Thomas Mitchell draws a parallel to flamenco's "lowlife roots" and the "orgiastic origins" of jazz. He notes that early jazz, like flamenco, was "associated with despised ethnic groups, gangsters, brothels, free-spending bluebloods, and whoopee hedonism." By disguising their origins, Mitchell notes, both jazz and flamenco have entered the musical mainstream.

Movies

There are 13 single-screen and multiplex cinemas with a combined total of over 50 salas (theaters) showing original-language movies in Madrid.

Independant or Art Houses -- French, German, Italian, and Brazilian cultural centers have regular V. O. (versión original) performances of their country's movies. The Casa de América, Paseo de Recoletos 2, often features offbeat Latin American films in Spanish or Portuguese.